Tag: Azure

Night Train to Detroit Day of Azure

I have a latte in hand and am ready for the 5 1/2 hour night train that’s ahead. In just a few minutes, I will be departing Chicago on an Amtrak headed to Detroit for Detroit Day of Azure. Detroit Day of Azure is a one-day conference focused on Windows Azure with some of the best Windows Azure experts and speakers. This conference will take place tomorrow, Saturday, March 24th at the Microsoft Offices in Southfield, MI from 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM. If you have already registered, I will likely see you tomorrow. If you have not registered, unfortunately, the conference is sold out. If you are still interested in attending, you can sign up on the wait list and be notified as cancellations occur.

Tomorrow, I will be presenting “BI in the Cloud with SQL Azure Reporting” at 10:20 AM in the Technical Briefing Center. If you are interested in Business Intelligence and performing BI in the Cloud, attend my session where we will dig into Azure BI scenarios and tools including SQL Azure Reporting. The full description is below and you can get more information about my session and Detroit Day of Azure at http://www.detroitdayofazure.com.

BI in the Cloud with SQL Azure Reporting
Why maintain infrastructure for operational reporting, when you can do it in the cloud with SQL Azure Reporting? SQL Azure Reporting provides a set of capabilities that are familiar for developers using SQL Server Reporting Services on-premise. We will begin this session by considering the benefits and scenarios for BI in the cloud. Next, we will walkthrough what you need to get started using SQL Azure Reporting. We will then develop and deploy some reports to SQL Azure Reporting. Unfortunately, SSRS and SQL Azure Reporting do not have complete feature parity. As a result, we will conclude by reviewing the challenges and limitations of using SQL Azure Reporting over SQL Server Reporting Services.

You will learn the benefits of BI in the Cloud; the capabilities of SQL Azure Reporting; how to create and deploy reports to SQL Azure Reporting; and an understanding of the limitations of SQL Azure Reporting.

See you tomorrow in Detroit!

Recap of Iowa User Group Tour

Last Monday morning, I had coffee in Wisconsin with my buddy, and our local Microsoft Web Evangelist, Clark Sell. Clark and I had a good chat, and then I got on the road and headed toward Cedar Rapids, IA. At some point early in this trip, I realized that the Oak Brook Microsoft Store was on my route. So once in Oak Brook, I made a quick detour to pre-order the new Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone and then got back on my original journey. Unfortunately, I saw this post over the weekend which basically says if you didn’t get in on the pre-order early like I did, you aren’t going to get in on the Lumia 900 pre-order.

After about 5 hours in the car, I arrived in Cedar Rapids at Kirkwood Community College where the Cedar Rapids .NET User Group meets. The CRineta group was very welcoming, hospitable and interactive. After the meeting, we went out to a local sports bar and continued the conversation. On Tuesday evening, I presented to the Dubuque .NET Users Group. dbqINETA is a small group, but like CRineta they are also a fun and interactive group. Unfortunately, I couldn’t visit the Cedar Valley .NET Usergroup on Wednesday, but I hope to visit them sometime down the road. At both Iowa groups, I presented “Moving Web Apps to the Cloud”. During our time together, we walked through moving a traditional ASP.NET web application to Windows Azure. We worked through transitioning the typical on-premise dependencies like Windows Server, Active Directory and SQL Server to Windows Azure with new techniques and tools like Claims-based Identity, WIF, ADFS, Windows Azure Compute & Storage, and SQL Azure.

One interesting observation is that the overwhelming majority of the attendees had MSDN subscriptions, however, very few had a Windows Azure account. If you have an MSDN subscription and you are interested in developing apps in Windows Azure, MSDN provides you a great amount of Windows Azure resources as a benefit with your MSDN subscription. Every month you get a specified amount of Windows Azure resources, and it’s use it or lose it. So take advantage of your MSDN subscriptions and activate your Windows Azure account. In December, a new Windows Azure Spending Limit feature was released that makes it impossible to accidentally incur overage charges. The way it works is once you reach your allowed usage, instead of charging you for additional usage, Windows Azure will just turn off your service to prevent overage charges. This makes it completely risk free to try as a developer.

CRineta and dbqINETA, thank you for having me and I hope to see you again.

The following is a list of resources that were mentioned, as well as the presentation.

SQL Azure Migration Wizard
http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com

Patterns & Practices Windows Azure Guidance
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff898430.aspx

Moving Web Apps to the Cloud

View more from Eric D. Boyd

Leaving for Silicon Valley and Cloud Connect

This afternoon I’ll be leaving the Midwest and headed to Silicon Valley for Cloud Connect Santa Clara. Cloud Connect’s goal is to chart the course of cloud computing’s development by bringing together enterprise IT professionals, developers, infrastructure and service providers and cloud computing innovators. Cloud Connect is a one-of-a-kind event that encompasses the entire cloud computing ecosystem featuring a Launch Pad program, IT & Developer workshops and a full conference program.

On Thursday, I’m presenting “Applications at Scale” with Dan Bartow from SOASTA and Dave Roberts from ServiceMesh. In one hour, we will walk through the lifecycle of internet scale applications from architecture and development, to performance testing, to governance. I will be focusing on the architecture and development of internet scale applications and design patterns for scaling data using cloud platforms.

The Cloud Connect conference schedule is incredible starting with an Introduction to Cloud PaaS Architecture on Monday morning with Marc Mercuri and Mark Kottke, Three Patterns for Cloud Use in Your Organization with Brian Prince on Tuesday afternoon, and a ton of other great sessions and speakers throughout the week.

If you are going to Cloud Connect too, I hope to see you there.

Iowa User Group Tour Starts Now

In just a few minutes, I’ll be leaving home and beginning my journey to Iowa for an Iowa User Group tour. Tonight and tomorrow night I’ll be presenting “Moving Web Apps to the Cloud” at the Cedar Rapids .NET Users Group (CRineta) and Dubuque .NET User Group (dbqINETA). If you have been reluctant to take advantage of the Cloud because of fear of the unknown and having to learn another development platform, yet again, come out and learn how your .NET skills translate to developing for Windows Azure. For more information and to register, check out the following web sites.

Monday, February 6th, 2012 @ 5:30 PM
Cedar Rapids .NET Users Group (CRineta)
crineta.org
Kirkwood Community College
6301 Kirkwood Blvd SW Cedar Rapids, IA 52404-5299

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 @ 5:30 PM
Dubuque .NET Users Group (dbqINETA)
dbqineta.com
Clarke University – Keller Computer Center
1550 Clarke Drive Dubuque, IA 52001-3198

Windows Azure for Developers at LCNUG on Thursday

LCNUGThis Thursday, I’m presenting Windows Azure for Developers at the Lake County .NET Users Group (LCNUG) in Grayslake, Illinois. It’s nice to be presenting in my own backyard at the College of Lake County with developers from my local community. During our time together Thursday, January 12, I will walk through what Cloud Computing is all about and why we should care as developers. I will guide us through a journey of Platform as a Service (PaaS), Windows Azure and the common scenarios we encounter that are a great fit for Windows Azure and the Cloud. Together we will explore how to get started developing apps powered by Windows Azure, how to deploy to Windows Azure and Windows Azure specific classes and configuration that you should know.

For more information, check out http://lcnug.org/News/11-12-23/LCNUG_Jan_12_Windows_Azure_for_Developers.aspx.

To register, go to http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2684538527.

If there’s something specific you’d like to see or have questions about, shoot me a message and I’ll try to incorporate it and answer your questions.